Is it too late for Silicon Valley to avert election chaos?

A man in line for a Trump rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., in August holds a symbol for QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory that Facebook and Twitter have promised to help curb. The company added new rules on Wednesday, including extending a ban on political advertising beyond election day, adding fact-checks to posts by politicians prematurely claiming victory, and banning content that “seeks to intimidate voters.” “We’ve known for a long time that the 2020 election in the US would be unlike any other,” said a blog post from Guy Rosen, a Facebook vice president. As the election approaches, some in Congress, with Trump’s support, are again moving to strip “Section 230” legal protections that shield the social media companies from lawsuits when they fact-check or take down misleading content. “Facebook is actively targeting ads by conservative groups ahead of the election, either removing the ads completely, or adding their own disclosure if they claim it didn’t pass their fact-check system,” Sen. Rick Scott said last week, just before the Senate Commerce Committee summoned the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google to appear before it Oct. 28. He accused Scott, fellow committee member Sen. Ted Cruz and other Republicans of clearing the way for Trump to use social media to declare victory before all the ballots are tallied, and “declare the continued counting of lawful votes as a coup, and that people should rise up.” Schatz said that Republicans’ renewed push to repeal the legal protections essential to the companies’ business model “appears to me like an attempt to work the refs coming up to an election.” Times staff writer Noah Bierman in Brooklyn, Iowa, contributed to this report.